


Ambiguities

by Lilliburlero



Category: Henry V - Shakespeare
Genre: Homophobia, Leeks, M/M, Mid-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 20:00:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1755787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/pseuds/Lilliburlero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the triumph of Agincourt, discipline in the English army starts to go to hell, and even the most staunch advocate of the laws of war isn't immune.</p><p>*</p><p>To the prompt: "Fluellen, Strikhedonia (i.e. the pleasure of saying <i>to hell with it</i>)"</p><p>*</p><p>Content advisory: some visceral affective Christian imagery; (canonical) oral rape with an implement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambiguities

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reconditarmonia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconditarmonia/gifts).



Gruffydd liked to say his prayers before the painting of Our Lord with the instruments of His Passion.  It was the finest in the small church, about two thirds of the way up the nave, on the south wall. It was new, very much in the modern, pathetic style: His white, emaciated body scored with livid red wounds, twisting in agony to turn a handsome, dolorous face in three-quarter view upon the sinner beneath.  The crown of thorns was crushed down upon His brow, starting rivulets of blood; the side-piercing spear lay in His arms and across His naked breast; the scourge, sponge and nails upon His upturned hands, the Holy Cross spread wide behind Him. 

Gruffydd ap Llewelyn was two score years of age, and five-and-twenty of those had been spent inflicting wounds—often unto death—upon his fellow men, any and all of whom might be this Man of Sorrows.  It was good to fight for your king, who stood closest of all men to God—but Gruffydd had not always fought for his king and his God: as often as not, it had been for Mammon.  It was good to fight for a cause, and King Henry’s cause in France was just: that had been proven by the miraculous victory at Agincourt, when seven thousand men had defeated an army six times the size—but when the battle-fever was on him Gruffydd never thought of causes, just or not.  All he thought of was tearing through the opponent he faced to reach the next one; there was only one other pleasure on earth that even came near it, and that was mortal sin too, though it bothered him a lot less.  He gritted his teeth, trying to hold back tears, but they leaked from between his eyelids.  Eventually he gave in to them, weeping noiselessly but unrestrainedly through his paternosters and his aves.  

Such is the beneficent effect of sincere prayer that after a little time he began to feel better.  He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and turned away to blow his nose.  He shook his hand free of snot and was about to reapply himself to his devotions when the door of the church opened.  Gruffydd turned instinctively, to see Pistol enter; forgetting both where he was and his shamefully tear-stained face, he swore vividly enough to undo a fair part of the afternoon’s penitential work.  What was that dung-hill cock doing here, Gruffydd wondered—surely he couldn’t be planning to steal something?—then saw that he was unmistakably headed in his direction.  Pistol sank into the reeds beside him.

‘What the hell do you want, Pistol? If another one of your pals has got himself into trouble, you can think on—’

‘My Andromache, my Alcestis, my Penelope,’ he announced with dignity, ‘is passed into Elysium. Sir.’

Gruffydd frowned at the mention of pagans here in church, even exemplary ones. ‘Pardon me, ensign. Do you mean—’

‘I received notification today that my wife is dead, yes, sir. In the ‘spital, sir.  Of a malady connected with this here nation, sir.’

‘May the Lord have mercy on her soul.’  Gruffydd made the sign of the cross. ‘I will remember her in my prayers.’

‘Here, you got a cold or summat, sir?  Your nose is as red as Bar—’

‘Maybe a touch of a chill, look you.  The humours are foul this time of year—’

‘No you ain’t, sir.  You been crying.  Like Niobe.’

‘Hold your tongue, ensign.’

‘Course, Niobe had _children_ , didn’t she?  That’s what all the fuss was about.  You ain’t got children, have you, sir?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘ _Not that you know of_.  Don’t you think it behoves a man to know, sir?  I have ‘em, and I 'know ‘em.  But first you’ve got to know where to put it to get ‘em in the first place, I suppose, ain't you, sir?’

Gruffydd stood up. ‘Get out.’

‘I don’t think even a captain in his majesty’s army can order another man out of the house of God, sir.  Not even such a very worshipful squire of the mountain as yourself.’  

Gruffydd was white, shaking and speechless, his hand on the hilt of his dagger.

Pistol scratched his arse luxuriously with his right hand, farted sonorously, then scrambled to his feet.  He peeled off his tattered right-hand mitten and held it out.

‘Mind that for me for a minute, will you?  I’m going outside for a shite. It’s worth a shilling to you.'  He yawned monstrously, showing almost a full set of strong, yellow teeth, and added, 'Sir.’

Gruffydd knocked it from his hand.  ‘I will not offer violence in a church, ensign. I’m going say five paternosters, and if I find you when I leave this place, I will break your head and see you hanged for insubordination.’

Pistol laughed contemptuously, but backed away, bending to snatch up the mitten. Unable to refrain from such a target, Gruffydd aimed a kick at his ribs, at which moment the priest came scurrying from the presbytery.

‘ _Alors!_ _Capitaine!_ ’ he exclaimed.

Pistol, taking his chance, scrambled up the nave and fled into the churchyard.  The priest advanced on Gruffydd, twittering sanctimoniously.

He spat, ‘ _Vas te faire enculer, putain de merde_ —’, stalked straight past the priest and out of the west door.

*

‘Whatever possessed me, that I had to go and say it in _French_?’  Gruffydd wailed.

_In a crisis_ , Tom Gower was given to roaring at recruits, _act at once_.  He then would usually add, ruining the effect a little, _make sure you think first_.  But on this occasion he had not needed to think.  He had taken his friend straight down to the pub, secured a private room so that he might, if needful, hold him in his arms and kiss his brow in the way that was subtly and indefinably different from the way that most men held and kissed their comrades-in-arms, and ordered stew and bread and rather a lot of rough red wine. 

‘I can swear in twelve of the languages of Christendom, look you, and I had to choose the only one he understands.’

‘Well, he probably has some Latin as well, to be fair.’

Gruffydd raised his head from Tom’s shoulder.  ‘Pfft.’

‘No? I thought they had to.’

‘Not a word. They just learn it off by rote, like quacking geese.’  

‘Look, goose or gander, I doubt he’ll go honking to their lordships, anyway, and even if he does, just deny everything.  It’s not like you stole, or raped anyone—’

‘I know he won’t.  That’s not the point, Tom.  I told a man of God to—’

‘I know what you told him, sweeting.  I have that much French. It’s what the farmwives say to me when we—resupply at—er—less than market rates.  Can’t you just confess—’

‘No.’

‘Why not?  Not to _him_ , obviously—’

‘Oh, Tom, use your intelligence, _del bach_.  Because I’m _not sorry_.  I bloody well enjoyed it.’

‘Oh.  Well, if you’re in a state of mortal sin _any_ way, then we can have one hell of a—’  Tom’s free hand slipped under the table.

‘ _Not_ funny, Thomas Gower. Christianity might not have made it to you Kentishmen yet—’

‘ _Men of Kent._ Kentishmen are _west_ of the Medway, and they’re a low traitorous breed of—’

‘—but I happen to take it seriously.  Someone's got to keep up standards. The whole army’s gone to the dogs since—’

‘I know.  I don’t mean it.  Well, I do, but _what thou wilt_ , you know. Here, the Welsh fellows in my company asked if you’d do the honour of taking a drink or two with them in the public bar later on.’

‘What’s that?’

‘For the day that’s in it, you know.’

‘Oh, good God.  I’d forgotten.’

‘Not like you.  Lucky I pinched this from Madame’s pantry, eh?’  Gower patted his nether person and produced a large, woody, last-season leek.

Gruffydd smiled wanly. ‘And there was I thinking you were just glad to see me, _cariad_.’

*

Only the hostess, Gower and the Welshmen were left in the pub.  The Welshmen had been singing practically since they had met, of drink, and love, and war, but now the songs were all of home.  Gower missed his family and his farm, but that was different.  None of the Welshmen had farms, and a few of them had French wives, and one at least of those wives was pregnant, and some of them weren’t quite wives, but near as made no matter. But Kent was fields, and orchards, and houses— _his_ house, with Nan, and Hugh and Cecily and the servants in it—Kent was _substance_ , and their Wales was all mist and ideas.  Gower caught himself thinking this steaming tripe, and reflected that he was probably really quite pissed.

The hostess leaned on the sill of the serving hatch, and made a friendly, exasperated face.

‘ _Ils sont gallois_ ,’ Gower essayed uncertainly.  ‘ _C’est leur fête_.’

She nodded.  It was possible. _Les anglais_ were all quite mad.  She addressed all the Welshmen accordingly for the rest of the three weeks they were billeted in the village, and the one who was actually named Dafydd rather liked it, because the hostess of the tavern was a young and good-looking widow.

Gruffydd’s singing soared above the rest, light and sweet and nearly as high as a boy’s.  Gower couldn’t believe he’d once been made shy by Gruffydd’s piping voice: he blushed for himself.  As the song ended he got up, stood behind him, and put his hands on his shoulders; Gruffydd leaned voluptuously into his chest; Gower gave a hearty shove back with his hips.  Exactly none of the men was fooled by this protestation-too-much, but they all appreciated the effort.  They were decent, both of the captains; sternly taking care of the men of their companies in an army that was splitting at the seams with too much success and it too easy gained.

‘Time to go home, Taff.’

‘Fuck off, _Sais_.’

*

After as energetic an interval as Gruffydd’s inebriation would permit, Tom curled around him on the pallet in the the loft they shared.

‘I can’t let it pass, Tom.  Iss—iss my honour at stake, look you.’

‘Don’t piss it away, then, my dear.  If the little scrote so much as lays a finger on you he’s in for a long twist in the wind, like—like—’

‘Like Bardolph.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘You think I should have talked to Exeter, isn’t it?’

‘No. Once Himself got involved there was no help for him anyway.  You know they say Bardolph was a crony of his, don’t you?  Back way back, in his disreputable youth.  There’s making an example, and then there’s a showy sort of grandstanding, and you know which I think that poor man’s hanging was, rogue as he might have been.’

‘He stole from holy God, Tom,’ Gruffydd slurred earnestly. ‘Discipline ought be used.  And I’ll see it is—tomorrow—tomorrow—’  He sank into snores.

*

In its way it had been funny, of course.  And clever: a senior officer couldn’t simply lay into a junior without his honour being forfeit, for how could the inferior strike back?  But dressed up as a prank like that, it looked harmless; the sort of thing that their lordships tolerated—approved, even, as showing that the men of the four nations rubbed along together, however so rough.  

But it was going to take a lot of  _vin rouge_ to expunge the memory of Gruffydd whirling the shortstave, dealing Pistol two deliberately glancing blows to the crown before he knew what had hit him, knocking his knees from under him, catching him a headlock—how fast and efficient he was, Gower thought, unable quite to refrain from admiration even now—and shoving the leek down Pistol’s craw until he choked and turned purple. 

Gruffydd released him then, saying, ‘If you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek,’ and Pistol fell flat on his face, gulping air and bringing up strings of spittle and vomit.  Gower thought it was over.  But as soon as Pistol got to his knees, Gruffydd caught him by the hair and thrust the leek back into his gaping gob, agitating it obscenely.  

‘Enough, captain,’ Gower stepped forward and looked Gruffydd full in the face; he saw the unsteady, brittle light of battle-fever in it and knew he couldn’t stop him short of killing him.  

‘Eat, I pray you,’ Gruffydd said sweetly, ‘Will you have some more sauce to your leek?’

Gower froze. Pistol’s eyes were bulging and bloodshot, but they met Gower’s in the sort of knowing derision he’d seen once before, in those of a mule about to meet the knacker.  Fluellen dropped him then; he crashed forward, heaving desperately, puking up black bile and blood with fragments of leekskin in it.  The Welshman threw a groat at Pistol’s head, and sneered, ‘God buy you, and keep you, and heal your pate.’  He strode straight past Gower towards the stables, no satisfaction in his cold, blank face, for no debt of honour, after all, had been settled.

Wanting to retch, Gower administered a cursory kicking and some sententious words to the shivering, coughing heap of guts on the ground.  It was going to take a hell of a lot more than _vin rouge_ to make Gower forget all the times he’d eaten a leek, to wash the thick savour of its sauce out of his dry mouth.


End file.
